Monday's headlines will cause the stuff to hit the fan. The 100,000 hrs. of tapes not listened to by FBI will be peanuts compared w/ what's coming.

What line from Debate No. 1 will be the focus next week?

While pointing to the president's failure to correct his mistakes, Kerry's remarks about Bush. "It's one thing to be certain -- but you can be certain and be wrong." Good guess, and a line that will be around for the rest of the campaign, but not front and center next week.

Sen. Kerry's "I believe that when you know something's going wrong, you make it right." Another good guess, especially when you're dealing with one who doesn't know how to acknowledge what America pretty much recognizes, that going into Iraq was a mistake. But again, not for next week.

Sen. Kerry, after saying that while Bush claims the FBI has changed its culture, there are over 100,000 hours of tapes unlistened-to. "On one of those tapes may be the enemy being right the next time." Your best guess so far, and it will be second, and not first.

Kerry saying: "And the test is not whether you're spending more money. The test is, are you doing everything possible to make America safe. America didn't need that tax cut. America needed to be safe."

Your problem in guessing is that while I know Republicans also read this blog, you expect me as a Democrat to say the line was said by Kerry. Well, I didn't limit the line being front and center next week to just the best line of the evening.

Some of the above truly will be around and repeated during the rest of the campaign (or at least should; you know how Kerry sometimes just doesn't come through and seem to get it).

The line that will be the focus of next week was spoken by Pres. Bush after the "America needed to be safe" line came from Kerry's mouth.

Bush: "Of course we're doing everything we can to protect America.

"I wake up every day thinking about how best to protect America. That's my job."

"I work with Director Mueller of the FBI. He comes into my office when I'm in Washington every morning, talking about how to protect us. There's a lot of really good people working hard to do so. It's hard work.

"But again, I want to tell the American people we're doing everything we can at home [to protect America and make it safe], but you'd better have a president who chases these terrorists down and bring them to justice before they hurt us again."

Sounds like boilerplate you say. Read on. I couldn't quite believe this. It makes me wonder if something is rotten in Denmark; at least it shows somebody is not keeping his eye on the ball.

I recall that the problem that Sen. Kerry alluded to on the 100,000 hours of tape that we all read about recently is because the FBI is short of persons that can interpret.

We can criticize and second guess this and it makes for good headlines and sound bites for a debate, but I personally give the FBI the benefit of the doubt and hope it is doing everything conceivably possible to remedy this situation until I know otherwise (it damn better be).

I cannot understand -- let me rephrase -- I cannot comprehend how the following is possible. I will guarantee if the President does meet with FBI Director Mueller every morning he is in Washington as he said, the two along with some other heads come Monday will have a too hot too handle topic to go over.
_______________

After the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, investigators learned that two of the bombers, Sheik Rahman and Ali Mohammed, were on an FBI watch list but still got visas because the State Department and the old Immigration and Naturalization Service didn't have access to FBI data.

This slipping through the cracks, this left arm not knowing what the right arm is doing, 11 years ago, brought to the government's attention the need for a unified, accurate and meaningful terrorist list.

Since such time and event law-enforcement agencies have long considered the creation of automated information or "watch lists" of potential or known terrorists and criminals as a vital tool to help protect the country. Names on the list are checked against the names of foreign nationals attempting to enter or already present in the U.S.

Compiling a viable, unified list of terrorist suspects was mandated by Congress and ordered by President Bush after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Such a list is considered by law-enforcement agents as the most basic tool in their arsenal and vital for protecting the country.

After Sept. 11, a single watch list was considered vital to keeping terrorists from gaining access to the U.S. as well as to coordinate the fight against al Qaeda.

But in April 2003, the investigative arm of Congress, the General Accounting Office, now known as the General Accountability Office, found that efforts to create such a list were going nowhere and said that the lack of a single master list was constraining efforts to protect and control U.S. borders.

That was in April 2003. Now it is October 2004. Guess what? There still isn't one.

Being considered by law-enforcement agents as the most basic tool in their arsenal and vital for protecting the country would seem to be priority number one wouldn't it, something that would have been done is Bush is correct in telling us last night that he is doing everything he can to make us safe.

But rather than having such a list, now dozens of agencies, from the Federal Aviation Administration to the FBI, continue to use different lists that sometimes contain outdated or incorrect information and even contradict each other. That can hamper the sharing of vital data and identifying of suspects -- and make it easier for terrorists to slip through cracks in the system, officials acknowledge.

A new government report concludes that efforts to protect U.S. borders and better identify terrorist suspects by compiling such a single consolidated watch list -- from more than a dozen currently in use by federal agencies -- have badly foundered.

The inspector general of the Homeland Security Department, in the sometimes scathing report, cites poor cooperation among many agencies and says his own agency failed "to play a lead role" in oversight.

The report has been delivered to Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and congressional leaders.

The findings come amid an intense debate about improving intelligence in the wake of the 9/11 Commission's damning findings about government failures before and after the Sept. 11 attacks.

(An edited version of the inspector general's report is to be publicly released on Sunday, and this is why I noted that Monday's headlines should be something for Bush to worry about. A copy of the report was reviewed by the wsj which has an article in today paper. Actually, because the wsj has it today, expect it Saturday in the N.Y. Times, the Wash. Post, the wire lines, etc.)

"The watch list is the poster child for information sharing for all our intelligence and government agencies," said Daniel B. Prieto, research director for the Homeland Security Partnership Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. "It has been the one project that is the most straightforward; the most defined, the most politically accepted idea, supported by every investigative commission since 9/11. If they can't get this one right, then shame on them."

The inspector general's report notes that arguments over who is in charge of consolidating a terrorist database have dogged the creation of the watch list almost from the start.

The report states: "The manner through which the watch list consolidation has unfolded has not helped the nation break from its pattern of ad hoc approaches to counterterrorism."

In the first presidential debate last night, Kerry said the president had failed to support police, firefighters and other programs, saying, "This president thought it was more important to give the wealthiest people in America a tax cut rather than invest in homeland security. Those aren't my values. I believe in protecting America first."

In response, the president said his administration had tripled spending on homeland security to $30 billion, worked with Congress to create the Homeland Security Department and added protection and guards to the nation's borders. "We're doing our duty to provide the funding," he said. In reference to American military action overseas, he added, "But the best way to protect this homeland is to stay on the offense."

It was at this point that Kerry said: "And the test is not whether you're spending more money. The test is, are you doing everything possible to make America safe. We didn't need that tax cut. America needed to be safe."

Maybe it will be Bush's "we're doing all we can do" and Kerry's "it's not what you're spending but what you're getting done line" that may be in the papers next week.

One thing we should not expect. Any statement to the effect that we have goofed. Bushies don't make mistakes. Thus Bushies have no need to be sorry about anthing.

This notwithstanding, I predict one thing. In the old Reagan tradition, somebody might get taken to the woodshed.